Urban Legends - The Art of the Prank

January 15, 2010December 15, 2023

LiteratEye #47: A Tale of Theft & Murder Behind “The Hound of the Baskervilles”

Here’s the forty-seventh installment of LiteratEye, a series found only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly and the LitFraud blog.

LiteratEye #47: A Tale of Theft & Murder Behind “The Hound of the Baskervilles”
By W.J. Elvin III
January 15, 2010

Sherlock Holmes Movie Poster-200 Some reviewers say Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must be rolling over in his grave in response to the new Sherlock Holmes film. Typical is the comment in The New York Times that Robert Downey, Jr.’s version of Sherlock “frequently bears little resemblance to the one Conan Doyle wrote about.”

Well, there are a great many Sherlock Holmes stories that Conan Doyle had nothing to do with other than to provide the basics, and who knows how many actors from the big screen to the small theater have portrayed our hero, each in their own way. So the current situation is nothing new, Sir Arthur has already been given plenty of reason to roll over.

More to the point, who can say how Doyle might have reacted? His famous detective novels give the impression he was as much a man of science as Sherlock, pragmatic, principled, scoffing at fantasy. Not entirely so. He was into fairies, séances and, it has been charged, murder.

Doyle continues to suffer ridicule for falling for fake photos of fairies. It’s said that in the 1920s he spent a million dollars in an effort to prove the existence of the tiny folk.

Probably the strangest story involving Doyle found him accused of plagiarism, conspiracy and murder. Continue reading “LiteratEye #47: A Tale of Theft & Murder Behind “The Hound of the Baskervilles””

January 8, 2010December 15, 2023

LiteratEye #46: Who Discovered the Americas? Egyptians, Irish, Chinese and Your Uncle Bob

Here’s the forty-sixth installment of LiteratEye, a series found only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly and the LitFraud blog.

LiteratEye #46: Who Discovered the Americas? Egyptians, Irish, Chinese and Your Uncle Bob
By W.J. Elvin III
January 8, 2010

covermaur-200

“Nowhere, alas, does bullshit and bang-me-arse archaeology flourish so well these days as in America where foolish fantasies pour from the press every month and sell like hotcakes.”

-Noted archaeologist and detective novelist Glyn Daniel, quoted in the book, Fantastic Archaeology.

Do you get lured off down a rabbit hole by claims of lost civilizations, fantastic explorations, bizarre archaeological discoveries and all that? Welcome to the club.

My membership dues have included books I’ve bought, bang-me-arse fabrications or not, about visits to the Americas by Chinese, Welsh, Scot, Irish, Basque, Libyan, Egyptian, Norse and other travelers in the days before Columbus.

There’s no shortage of fascinating tales. Take, for instance, the one about the Roman-Jewish settlement in the Tucson area, dating back a thousand years or so. Has to be a hoax, but if so how did it fool several respectable investigators? Continue reading “LiteratEye #46: Who Discovered the Americas? Egyptians, Irish, Chinese and Your Uncle Bob”

December 29, 2009December 15, 2023

Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009

Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009
by David Emery
About.com Guide

Here, in ascending order of popularity as gauged by reader interest and site traffic, are the Top 10 Urban Legends, Rumors, and Internet Hoaxes of 2009:

ladygaga-200 10. August ‘Mars Spectacular’
Circulating for the sixth year running, this email hoax describes a “once in a lifetime” celestial phenomenon “” the closest encounter between Mars and Earth for the past 5,000 years “” which already occurred in 2003. Read more…

9. Burundanga Drug Warning
“In Katy, Texas a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a female putting gas in her car and left his card,” begins this overwrought message. “She said no, but accepted his card out of kindness and got in the car. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realized that the odor was on her hand; the same hand which accepted the card from the gentleman at the gas station.” Read more…

8. Breast Infestation
“The picture is horrible but I felt that I should share with you. After anthropologist Susan McKinley came back home from an expedition in South America, she noticed a very strange rash on her left breast. Nobody knew what it was and she quickly dismissed it, believing that the holes would leave in time. Upon her return she decided to see a doctor after she started developing intense pains. To Miss McKinley’s surprise, they found larvae growing and squirming within the pores and sores of her breast.” Read more… Continue reading “Top 10 Urban Legends of 2009”

December 11, 2009December 15, 2023

LiteratEye #43: Oh, I wonder, wonder who, ummbadoo-ooh, who, who wrote “The Night Before Christmas”?

Here’s the forty-third installment of LiteratEye, a series found only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly and the LitFraud blog.

LiteratEye #43: Oh, I wonder, wonder who, ummbadoo-ooh, who, who wrote “The Night Before Christmas”?
By W.J. Elvin III
December 11, 2009

santa_record_broken-200 Sure, some of us are nostalgic for ancient pagan winter rites like getting all painted up in blue for a sun worshipping cavort around a circle of huge boulders. Or those jolly pre-Christian customs like decorating trees with the intestines and various organs of one”s enemies. But let”s face it, the old-fashioned ways of celebrating year”s end are pretty much out of favor with the mainstream.

All that old-fashioned revelry has been transposed into kinder, gentler Christmas. In fact — regardless of your position as participant, observer of some other tradition, or just as bystander — you probably see the reality of two Christmases operating side by side. There”s the Christian religious celebration and then there”s the giving and getting commercial holiday frenzy.

Well, we”ll leave the religious rigmarole for someone else to tackle. Let”s look at the evolution of the commercial frenzy. Continue reading “LiteratEye #43: Oh, I wonder, wonder who, ummbadoo-ooh, who, who wrote “The Night Before Christmas”?”

December 4, 2009December 15, 2023

Peruvian Police Suspended for Faking Mythological Killings

Submitted by W.J. Elvin III: Come out Santa, it’s safe. Looks like it’s ok to let your jelly belly roll:

Peru officer suspended over human fat killers ‘lie’
by Dan Collyns
BBC News, Lima
December 2, 2009

PeruPoliceFatScam Peru’s police chief has suspended a top investigator for saying he had caught a gang who were murdering people to sell their fat.

Last month, top organised crime investigator Felix Murga said police had arrested four suspects who confessed to murdering up to 60 people.

He said they were selling their fat for thousands of dollars a litre.

But the macabre tale now appears to be nothing more than a tall story – or a big fat lie. Continue reading “Peruvian Police Suspended for Faking Mythological Killings”